Divine Politicking: A Rhetorical Approach to Deity Possession in the Himalayas

Journal Title: Religions - Year 2016, Vol 7, Issue 9

Abstract

In North India, political leaders are referred to as netas ¯ , and the term netagir ¯ ¯ı is broadly and pejoratively used to describe the self-promotion, political maneuvering, and public rhetoric in which politicians engage. However, my ethnographic fieldwork in the state of Uttarakhand, India, shows that local divinities can also be netas ¯ : they vie for their constituents’ support, make decisions that materially impact people’s lives, and threaten to use force in implementing those decisions. These “political divinities” are routinely encountered as possessed dancers in large-scale public rituals in this region. In this article, I focus on how political divinities affect, and are affected by, audiences in tangible and far-reaching ways. I argue that public possession rituals open up a highly charged zone for inherently fluid, situational, and pragmatic negotiations between humans and divinities. While anthropological studies of possession view it as a sociopolitical event that trades in power relations, this article calls for a rhetorical approach to possession, which foregrounds possession as a way of persuading particular audiences of certain ways of thinking and acting in matters of collective importance.

Authors and Affiliations

Aftab Singh Jassal

Keywords

Related Articles

Pervasive Anxiety about Islam: A Critical Reading of Contemporary ‘Clash’ Literature

This article analyzes and critiques North American and European “clash literature”—a genre of post-9/11 writings that popularize elements of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, with particular referenc...

One Life/Many Lives: An Internal Hindu-Christian Dialogue

This essay consists of philosophical and comparative theological reflections on the topic of rebirth, or reincarnation. Informed by the work of William James, John Hick, and Francis X. Clooney, the essay first establis...

Beggar-Thy-Neighbour vs. Danube Basin Strategy: Habsburg Economic Networks in Interwar Europe

After the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, leaders in successor states were eager to become economically independent from the former capital Vienna. They therefore quickly implemented a set of neomercantilistic meas...

New Light on a Lost Cause: Atticus G. Haygood’s Universalizing Spirituality

The American tragedy of slavery and the Civil War provides the backdrop for the exemplary spirituality of Atticus Haygood (1839–1896). The son of a Georgia slaveholder, Haygood served as a chaplain in the Confederate a...

Redefining Religious Nones: Lessons from Chinese and Japanese American Young Adults

This analysis of Chinese and Japanese American young adults, based on the Pew Research Center 2012 Asian American Survey, examines the religious nones of these ethnic groups. Rather than focusing on their beliefs and b...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP25611
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7090117
  • Views 314
  • Downloads 5

How To Cite

Aftab Singh Jassal (2016). Divine Politicking: A Rhetorical Approach to Deity Possession in the Himalayas. Religions, 7(9), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-25611